Daily Archives: October 27, 2011

Turtle Bay and Beyond links to the relevant documents.

Deseret News: “When does human life begin?” That question was answered in a European court of justice this week (Oct. 19). The judgement (Brustle vs. Greenpeace) recognizes the beginning of human life at “all stages of the development of human life, beginning with the fertilization of the ovum.”

Baptist Press:
A jailed Iranian pastor who could be put to death for his faith has been given Islamic literature and been asked to read it — a move potentially meant to trap him into a blasphemy conviction.

The Christian Institute: The National Secular Society (NSS) threatened Woking Borough Council with legal action, claiming that allowing free Sunday parking for three churches in the town centre was a breach of equality and “almost certainly illegal”.

The Christian Institute: Trafford Housing Trust “looks vindictive” for its decision to demote a Christian who posted inoffensive remarks about his religious opinions on Facebook, a New Statesman writer says.

Lisa Miller at The Washington Post: That Justice Antonin Scalia believes in execution as a moral form of punishment is a well-known fact. That he is an observant, traditional Roman Catholic is, similarly, well-known.

The Boston Globe: Federal civil rights attorneys have launched an investigation into whether the state is discriminating against students with limited English fluency by allegedly failing to ensure that new charter schools are equipped to educate the students.

MiamiHerald.com: The school district is withholding more than $185,000 from the Academy of Arts & Minds charter school in Coconut Grove because the school has failed to provide some services for children with special needs — a violation of state and federal law. Last month, the school, which has 460 students, was also slapped for illegally charging fees to students for basic classes.

Boston.com: Medical marijuana advocates in California sued the federal government Thursday in an effort to quash a recent crackdown on the state’s storefront pot dispensaries, claiming government officials have overstepped their constitutional authority by not respecting how local officials have chosen to regulate pot stores and growers.

BostonHerald.com: The father of two went to the town’s three selectmen last month with a simple request: to hold a peaceful prayer vigil on the town common . . . The selectmen put their feet down. No way, they told Casey, invoking the Constitution’s separation of church and sta

The American Spectator: Reid Smith seeks to enlighten us on the question of Sharia law. But curiously he omits one of the central tenets of Sharia law – that the word of a woman is half that of a man.

Guardian.co.uk: Under government plans, countries would not only implement human rights law but interpret it – and decide if they complied

Houston Chronicle (includes video): Hundreds of people turned out to demonstrate their concern over a move to stop pregame prayers at a high school in northwest Alabama.

The Irish Times: A French citizen who changed sex to become a woman but stayed with her wife of 15 years and their children is seeking legal recognition for her altered status, in a case that could reopen debate over France’s ban on same-sex marriage.

CNSnews.com (includes video): First Lady Michelle Obama told two audiences at Democratic fundraising events on Tuesday that the justices her husband appointed to the Supreme Court will protect the right to “love whomever we choose.”

CNSnews.com: The Girl Scouts of Colorado are allowing a 7-year-old boy to join a local troop because he is “living life as a girl.”

A national abortion rights group announced Thursday that it will sue over revised regulations for abortion providers in Kansas . . .

The Guardian: Workers angry with Silvio Berlusconi’s pledges to make it easier for companies to sack employees, but hold back from strike call

LifeSiteNews.com: However, a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that supply-side strategies — strategies aimed at reducing the number of abortion providers — also have promise for lowering abortion rates

Fox News: Supporters admit that a victory for “Issue 3” would be mostly symbolic – but powerfully so. “Sometimes symbols matter,” said Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich. “The problem with Obamacare is you stick all these people on, and you have no way to pay for it.”

C-Fam: At UN headquarters this week, governments dismissed a high level UN bureaucrat’s claim that abortion is a human right and went so far as to scold him for overstepping his mandate.

South Korea: Unlike most other countries, credit card users in South Korea have no option to pay off their debt over months or even years. Instead, they must pay off the full balance in 30 days, which makes it easy for borrowers “paying 25% plus annual interest rates to fall behind.” It is not uncommon for lenders to take possession or even repossess borrowers homes to pay their debts. When a poor woman like You Mi Kim, becomes delinquent, she often turns to private lenders for quick cash.

A lawsuit has been filed seeking to block a new state law that would bar tax breaks for those who donate to groups involved with abortion providers.

Gay City News: Seven new Fortune 1000 corporations added policies barring discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity in response to outreach during the past year from the New York State Comptroller’s Office.

Martin Kettle at Guardian.co.uk: There will certainly be no going back to the bizarre House of Lords system that ended in 2009. The judiciary has been formally separated from the legislature . . . This will inescapably lead to a rather more emphatic and sometimes confrontational relationship between ministers and the judges, and between parliament and the judges.

Lambda Legal: Lambda Legal and the Idaho Safe Schools Coalition today applauded a Boise-area school district for approving a student club policy that eliminated a new requirement that students get parental permission to participate in clubs and other restrictions that would have harmed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and violated their rights.

BBC News – : Ministers have said attempts to reform the European Court of Human Rights will “take time” as the UK must persuade 46 other nations of the need for change.

Bloomberg: A New York man admitted to brokering black-market sales of human kidneys to three Americans, becoming the first person convicted in the U.S. of organ trafficking. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 60 . . .

LaTimes.com: The legal challenges were brought by Republicans seeking to overturn congressional and state Senate voting district maps drawn by a citizens commission.

Radio Iowa: The two candidates who are running, however, never mentioned gay marriage in a public forum last night at Linn-Mar High School in Marion.

Michigan Radio: An Islamic school may sue a Washtenaw County township over a zoning decision. The Pittsfield Township Board of Trustees last night turned down the Michigan Islamic Academy’s request for a zoning change that would have allowed the academy to build a new school in the township, just south of Ann Arbor.

Education News: The fault lies, once again, in Congress. In an effort to make college “affordable” for the voters, it expanded the student loan program dramatically in the past 20 years. More student loan money meant colleges were free to raise tuition at more than twice the rate of consumer price inflation every year. In fact, the College Board just announced that the average cost of in-state tuition at a four-year public university rose 8.3 percent this year!

LifeNews.com: A Politico report today indicates the Planned Parenthood abortion business has hired a key White House aide, Dana Singiser, as its new Vice President for Public Policy — a position that will undoubtedly have her representing the abortion giant in relations with members of Congress and the White House.

How Appealing links to the report: “The New Politics of Judicial Elections: 2009-10; How Special Interest ‘Super Spenders’ Threatened Impartial Justice and Emboldened Unprecedented Legislative Attacks on America’s Courts”

The Denver Post: The three men vying to be Colorado’s next state Supreme Court justice hail from all points of the political compass, though none considers himself politically active.

NJ.com: Despite a tongue-lashing last week from the governor, a Superior Court judge ruled today that state judges do not have to pay more for pensions and health plans while the state is appealing a ruling that declared the increases unconstitutional.

Award honors ‘significant efforts in promoting and defending religious liberty…and constitutional originalism’

The Guardian: Rulings from Strasbourg human rights court ‘sometimes too narrow’ and interpretations are disputed

Religion Clause: The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution yesterday held hearings on “The State of Religious Liberty in the United States.” The prepared statements of witnesses are available online.

PRLog: he President of Catholic University, John Garvey, has been directed to respond to new charges of illegal discrimination at his university — against both Muslims and women — and to do so in writing by next Thursday

4th Circuit ruling on invocations conflicts with other courts, American history

DesMoinesRegister.com: Despite this, with somewhere between 12 million and 27 million people enslaved around the world and global profits from the slave trade amounting to about $31.6 billion according to the International Labour Organization, Congress wants to cut the budget for programs to combat human trafficking.

Guardian.co.uk: The world is in danger of missing a golden opportunity for development and economic growth, a “demographic dividend”, as the largest cohort of young people ever known see their most economically productive years wasted, a major UN population report warned on Wednesda

The debate was sponsored by the Federalist Society and is here. The video runs just over 80 minutes.

News from The Associated Press: The schedules for Mass at the two Roman Catholic churches in Jaffa, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, reveal a change that has dramatically, if quietly, altered the face of Christianity in the Holy Land.

OneNewsNow.com: Figures show that abortions in The Cornhusker State have dropped ten percent overall following the October 15, 2010, implementation of L.B. 1103, a bill that recognizes that unborn babies can feel pain at least at 20 weeks gestation and bans abortions after that point.

News from The Associated Press: Prosecutors say 34-year-old Andrea Moton assisted with abortions done by cutting the spinal cords of babies allegedly born alive.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall: Ever wonder what the world look like if Planned Parenthood’s dreams came true? If there were no Judeo-Christian pressures or legal limits, and abortion was viewed as just another amoral solution to some of this world’s problems? If so, you need look no further than China to see how such a paradigm works in real life.

Tulsa Beacon: “A Christian organization should not be targeted for discrimination when it is simply seeking to publicize its voluntary meetings just like other community groups do,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Matt Sharp. “The district would have people believe that the Constitution requires a religious organization to be singled out in this manner when, in reality, the Constitution strictly prohibits this type of discrimination. The courts have repeatedly upheld this.”

ADF letter to Cheatham County School District says no settlement can ban private religious activities of teachers

OneNewsNow.com: Matt Sharp, litigation staff counsel for Alliance Defense Fund . . . “All of the court cases on this have dealt with specifically this type of discrimination,” Sharp explains, “where all of the other community groups are allowed in, but a Christian religious group is specifically targeted and excluded because of its religious nature.” “Time and time again,” he adds, courts have held that under the First Amendment, such censorship is unconstitutional.

Morning Call: Matthew Sharp, an attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund in suburban Atlanta, a group that provides legal defense of religious freedom and represented the Ayers family, did not return a call. Michael Ayers declined to comment.

LifeSiteNews.com: Other speakers will include the eminent Brazilian pro-life activist Fr. Lodi da Cruz, speaking on the issue of abortion, HLI’s Raymond da Souza on dechristianization, Fr. Paulo Ricardo on cultural Marxism, Alliance Defense Fund’s Piero Tozzi on the claimed “right” to abortion in international law, and LifeSiteNews’ own Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, speaking on the goals, methods, and history of the homosexual movement.

Huffington Post (embeds Fox 23 Video): “The school district cannot engage in that type of discriminatory behavior,” ADF attorney Matt Sharp told KOKI Fox 23. “The school has to remain neutral in all of this, it can’t pick and choose which group it likes or doesn’t like based on the religious content or viewpoint of their message.”

Religion News in Brief – The Washington Post (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ. It alleges the school unconstitutionally prohibits the group from distributing religious flyers, from taking part in an open house and from using the school’s public address system.

KRMG.com: Owasso Kids for Christ is a before-school, Bible-based character building organization according to the Alliance Defense Fund’s Matt Sharp, the attorney handling the case.
“This is a straight-forward case of a school district singling out and discriminating against a Christian organization because of its religious identity,” he said.

News from The Associated Press: Chinese lawmakers on Thursday touted the country’s legal system as the best way to protect the rights of citizens, despite the widespread detention and intimidation of political critics that is fueling a small but growing movement for greater civil liberties.

News from The Associated Press: Voters are picking Ireland’s next president Thursday from a crowded field of seven candidates, among them a reality TV star, a former Irish Republican Army warlord and the country’s top gay-rights crusader.

News from The Associated Press: A Chinese claim that without its government’s severe family planning limits world population would have hit the 7-billion mark years earlier is drawing fire from demographers who call it baseless and unscientific.

Federation for Childre: he Pennsylvania State Senate today took a significant step towards expanding educational options to low-income children and kids in failing schools, passing legislation that would create a new voucher program and increase funding for the state’s existing scholarship tax credit program.

Robert A. Sirico at WSJ.com: It was centralization that caused this mess in the first place. Central banks created paper money, easy and limitless credit, and the moral hazard that accompanies them. Why should we believe that more centralization is the solution when experience suggests precisely the opposite?

News from The Associated Press: Shares on Greece’s stock market rose sharply Thursday following a debt deal reached by European leaders, but opposition parties blasted the landmark agreement, with conservatives warning it condemned the country to “nine more years of collapse and poverty.”

News from The Associated Press: A group of married gay current and former military personnel has sued the federal government, seeking equal recognition, benefits and the same support as married heterosexual couples. | SLDN press release and information page

The Hill: The 22-page report from House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) concludes that married couples will get only 14 percent of the law’s tax credits, even as more than 7 million mostly single people cease paying income taxes altogether.

TheHill.com: President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly referring to the Congress as “Republican” even though their party controls one-half of the unpopular institution.

Maggie Gallagher at Public Discourse: A new proposal for reducing unnecessary divorce gets to the heart of the problem: the current system seeks to meet a divorcing couple’s every need—except for time and education on reconciliation.

SCOTUS Blog: Blue Mountain School District. v. J.S. . . . Whether and how the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) applies to online student speech that originates off campus and targets a member of the school community